Both Enderle and Kay said their take was based on the clear value of the iPhone name, and the vague interoperability promises made in the statement. “I’m not convinced that Cisco got what it wanted out of this,” said Enderle. In the past, he added, Apple has made promises to partners that it didn’t keep. “That’s been a history of deals with Apple. The partner always regrets it.”

OOH-HA-HA! EEE-EEE-EEE! OOH-OOH-OOH!

…

As usual, Enderle is talking out of orifices that were not meant for such purposes.

Cisco clearly could not have given a rat’s ass about the iPhone trademark. It Photoshopped the name on existing products to try to give the illusion that it had great big plans for it. Then it happily came to an agreement with a company that was going to put it on a landmark product that will turn Cisco’s use of the trademark into a footnote. A brief anachronism.

Do not, dear readers, shed a single tear over poor Cisco. The Macalope doesn’t know the terms of the deal any more than Enderle does, but whatever it got, it was adequately compensated for half an hour of Photoshopping.

I’m trying to think off-hand if there are any cases where Enderle may technically be correct. (And, as usual, failing to do so.) Have there been any deals where Apple has really screwed over a business partner, in a PlaysForSure kind of way? Sure, the record companies aren’t that happy with Apple, but that’s because they would have preferred a promise (that of all iTunes tracks staying 99¢) to be broken; they’re upset that it’s been kept. Not quite the same thing.

Have there been any deals where Apple has really screwed over a business partner
I don’t know if it counts, but there was that whole cloning thing back in the late 90s. What with licensing agreements all the way up to MacOS 8 (Copland), so Apple did a name change of MacOS 7.7 to 8. That and the ‘We won’t license you for G3 computers’ bit. It probably was for the best, mind you, but still.